William Saletan warns in SlateMagazine about the danger to our democracy of Trump's inventing an utterly fictitious border crisis in order to seize extraordinary powers and build the Wall (which Satelan accurately calls Trump's "monument to himself") without the consent of Congress.

Saletan writes (on February 5):

"To silence his opponents and expand hi power, the authoritarian needs a crisis. Trump has concocted a fake emergency...'on out very dangerous southern border'...

He wants to build the wall by diverting military assets, or, more brazenly, declaring a national emergency to bypass the legislature, So he depicts undocumented immigrants as a foreign invasion...

The invading caravan army is a farce. But Trump's using it as a basis for sizing extraordinary powers is no joke...Deploying the military on American soil for partisan advantage is bluntly authoritarian. So is bypassing Congress."

In an obvious appeal to the white supremacist hate groups which have cheered him on ever since be began his bid for the presidency by attacking Mexican immigrants as "criminals", rapists" and "drug dealers" almost four years ago, Donald Trump launched into yet another tirade against Central American and other non-white immigrants in his February 5 SOTU speech.

For more about Trump's appeal to hate groups, See: Southern Poverty Law Center (October 25, 2018)

Hate groups and extremists cheer President Trump as he vilifies migrant caravan

"One in three [Central American] women is sexually assaulted on the long journey north. Smuggles use migrant children as pawns to exploit our laws and gain access to our country. Human traffickers and sex traffickers take advantage of the wide open areas between out ports of entry to smuggle thousands of young girls and women into the United States.an sell them into prostitution and modern day slavery.

Tens of thousands of innocent Americans are killed by lethal drugs that cross our border and flood into our cities, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl. The savage gang, MS-13, now operates in 20 different American states and they almost all come through our Southern border...

Year after year, countless Americans are murdered by criminal illegal aliens."

And on and on in what one has good reason to suspect is classic Stephen Miller style of lurid anti-immigrant vilification, at least faintly recalling the style of someone else who knew how to demonize and stir up hatred against minorities - Joseph Goebbels.

The above appeal to racial animosities is not only intended to divide Americans, but it puts our democracy itself in mortal danger, just as racial attacks by other autocrats or would-be-dictators against different minorities have done in other times and places.

Fomenting hatred against non-white immigrants also violates international human rights norms. The International Justice Resource Center (IJRC) lists one of these immigrant human rights as

Freedom from Discrimination

See,(February 7):

Ten Human Rights Standards Impacted by U.S. Immigration Policy

(I am sorry - I do not have a link -please access through Google.)

IJRC lists one of these immigrant human rights as:Non-Discrimination, explained as follows:

"The principle of non-discrimination is enshrined in all human rights treaties. and protects all persons within a state's territory or control from being denied fundamental rights based on their race, ethnicity or gender, among other factors. This principle is considered a jus cogens norm that binds all States. See I/A Court H.R. On the Juridical Conditions and Rights of Undocumented Migrants, Advisory Opinion OC-18/03, 17 September 2003, para. 173(4)...

President Trump has repeatedly referred to migrants in derogatory and racist terms, and human rights monitors have warned against rhetoric and policies rooted in xenophobia or discrimination."

I will discuss other ways in which Trump's immigration statements and agenda violate international human rights standards protecting immigrants in forthcoming comments.